


Skip: Superhero of Las Vegas

by LindseyTanner



Category: OC - Fandom, ORIGINAL SERIES - Fandom, Original Content, Original Work, Sci Fi - Fandom, SciFi - Fandom, ScienceFiction - Fandom, Superhero - Fandom, superheroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Superheroes, Superpowers, Teleportation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-12-24 19:04:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12019080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindseyTanner/pseuds/LindseyTanner
Summary: Skip teleported herself into a mess this time. It started out as a normal night of crime-fighting in Sin City, but when she runs into a gang of kidnappers, the mob follows hot on her trail. They won't stop until she gives up the source of her power, or she dies.





	1. Chapter 1

A breeze swept up the crumpled, stained Las Vegas Times newspaper in the alley nearest me. I watched from the roof of the abandoned clothes factory as it tumbled along the street and into the path of a car. Eventually the breeze reached me, ten stories above the city. I clutched my black fedora so the wind wouldn’t blow it away. Even though the sun had set hours ago, I knew I wouldn’t be disturbed.

Everything seemed quiet that night. No, that was the wrong word: Las Vegas was never quiet. Cars flashed by with their drivers laying on the horns, tourists yelled at each other from behind their maps, neon signs lit up buildings and sidewalks, and music blasted from the clubs and restaurants lining the streets. I meant nothing seemed wrong that night. I scooted forward a little, closer to the edge. To think, I used to be afraid of heights. Among other things.

The breeze grew stronger, so I pulled my black jacket tighter around me, and as I did so, the purple crystals in my gloves sparkled in the light of the signs. It was freezing for early autumn. I was about to call it a night when a sharp pop sounded to my left. I had heard enough of them to recognize it as a handgun.

I pushed off the building, and my sneakered feet fell forward, into the damp air, and the rest of me followed. Here we go.

I was there in an instant. I knew the building; I spent most of my time there. It served as the City Hall, as well as the library. Most of the time it was so crowded with people and papers I could stay until closing time and no one would notice me. That night, it was empty, although the lights were on.

Someone’s shadow appeared on the ground through the glass doors. Ah, so it wasn’t entirely empty. The person backed outside, holding a thin manila folder in one hand, and a gun in the other. I stepped behind a rough brick building, crouched down, and peeked around the corner. The robber was thin, and wore a black sweater and ski mask. A few strands of long blonde hair fell out of the mask, and when the person turned, I could see the curve of her chest.

She continued backing up, getting closer and closer to me. I waited. When she reached me, I tapped her on the shoulder. She whipped around, green eyes wide and gun hand shaking. But I wasn’t there.

I tackled her from behind and pushed her into the alley. She hit the ground on her knees, turned, and raised the gun, or thought she did. I stood in front of her, dangling it in her face by the trigger guard. She hesitated, glanced at her empty hands, then looked up and lunged for it. It vanished. She tripped instead, and landed hard on her stomach. I rolled her over and stepped on her wrists.

“Skip?” she said. Yeah, everyone called me that. Someone on the news decided I needed a new name, and it spread from there. It wasn’t a bad name, though, so I answered to it.

“That’s me,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Evania. Come on, let me go. It was just some papers. We’ll keep it a secret, just between us girls.”

“Papers for what?”

“Nothing. Really, it’s just junk.” She flicked a glance at the folder a few feet away.

“Why’ja steal it, then?”

“What?” Her eyes went round, like green yo-yos. I repeated the question. “I don’t know,” she said. “Someone wanted it.”

“Who?” “I don’t know. I was-” She glanced to her left and opened her mouth in a half-scream. Something clicked beside us. I turned. As we disappeared, a gunshot thundered out.

 

~~~~~

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	2. Chapter 2

We teleported to my rooftop perch. I checked her vital signs. She was breathing, so I dropped her off in the nearby hospital. Many of the patients at the hospital were there because of me. It was a lot simpler to deposit them at the front desk and teleport away than it was to go through the process of checking them in. I figured, after a year, the nurses had gotten used to it. After dropping the lady off, I went back to City Hall. I arrived ready for a fight, but no one was there.

The folder lay open where she dropped it, but without the papers. I turned in the direction the bullet came from. The shot sounded a lot louder and lower than a .22, and it had echoed. I traced the sound to an alcove in the neighboring building. A rusty metal ladder stretched from there to the roof. I teleported onto the ladder, just below the roofline. The crystals in my gloves grew warmer, and the purple glow faded a bit.

No sounds came from the roof. I inched upward. The asphalt roof stood empty; still, I thought I should get out of there. Besides, my gloves were running out of juice; I guessed I had another ten miles left. I climbed back down the ladder. The rungs were cold and my gloves only covered my palms. Sacrifices had to be made, I guess.

I entered City Hall, making sure that my hat covered my eyes. Masks just weren’t comfortable to me, plus the one-way coated plastic in the front of the hat protected my face. I glanced at my reflection in the glass door. The hat reached down to my nose and covered the top of my short brown hair. The black jacket, which was almost too small for me, draped over my purple t-shirt down to my dark blue jeans. Perfect. The two elderly ladies at the front ducked under the desk. I strode up to them.

“Hello.”

“Please don’t hurt us,” the poor lady on the right whimpered. I read the nameplate on her desk. Cynthia.

“I won’t. I’m the good guy, remember? Haven’t you seen me on the news?” The women didn’t answer, so I decided to make this quick. “Look, I just want to know what the robber stole. Was it important?” I leaned on the cool marble desk.

Cynthia shook her head. “It was just some old documents. Nothing worth stealing.” I heard the faint ring of sirens outside. The police were coming, though I didn’t know if they’d been alerted from the gunshots or if the ladies here had sounded an alarm. Either way, I had to be quick.

“Who did they belong to?”

“Several people,” said the other lady. The sirens grew louder as she spoke. “Amy Reed, Ashley Nicholson...”

“And?” I pressed them. The sirens reached an ear-piercing decibel, blue and red lights flickered on the walls through the glass door, and I heard the screech of tires. “Who else?”

“George Meyers.”

~~~~~

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	3. Chapter 3

The crystals had just enough energy left to get me back home. Apartment buildings were hard to come by in that town, unless you wanted to pay a fortune. I didn’t, which was why I lived in the attic of an accounting company. No one ever went up there; not even to clean. I had moved an orange sofa up there, and a table, and a few cabinets and trunks to hold my clothes and other stuff. I opened the drawer that held my gun collection and added the one I’d taken from Evania that night. I had five. I only took the ones people pointed at me.

I plopped down on the couch and closed my eyes. I needed to sleep to recharge the teleportation crystals, but the names that Cynthia had given me ran circles in my head.

George Meyers. I knew George Meyers. He’d helped me out of a tight spot once. I guess it was about time I returned the favor. I hadn’t seen him for years, though, and I had never heard of the other two. But the important thing right then was for me to get to sleep; otherwise, the crystals would stop working. The investigation could resume in the morning.

I awoke to the sound of a paper shredder. The morning air smelled like coffee from the offices downstairs. I stretched and picked my hat up off the floor where it had fallen. It was times like those that I wished I could teleport without having to touch the thing I was teleporting, like the gun, or people. I would swipe some coffee. Of course, I could teleport myself anywhere in the city, as long as I didn’t run out of power, so if I really wanted it, I could steal it. I checked my gloves. The three dime-sized crystals on each glowed bright purple, almost pink, against the brown fabric. I stretched again and yawned. Goal for the day: to find out who Amy Reed and Ashley Nicholson were.

I got breakfast from a distracted hotdog vendor. I knew stealing was bad, and that I worked to stop thieves and other criminals, but I had no money. Literally, not a penny to my name. I lost it all six years ago, when my parents ran off to Paris. They left shortly after my ninth birthday--just dropped me off at my grandma’s house with my stuff. I didn’t like them much, anyway. They were never home. I loved my grandma; I would have chewed my own arm off if it would make her happy. She took good care of me, and made sure I got food and an education. Then she got sick.

She didn’t have a will written when she died two years later, and the person she trusted to keep track of her money was a sleazeball and took it all. I tried to fight him legally, but I was only ten and I didn’t know how. Besides that, he was a lawyer. He took off with the money and I hadn’t seen him since. I was forced into an group home by the authorities, but is was so awful there, a year later, I ran away. I was only eleven, and I was alone. That’s when I started stealing.

I took a bite out of the hotdog and crossed the street with a group of tourists. I tightened my ponytail and adjusted the backpack that held my jacket and hat. The library sat on a hill not far from my attic hideout, so I decided to start my search there. I examined the tourists as we walked. Poor, naïve suckers, staring at their maps, not looking to see who’s around. One man’s wallet was trying to escape his jeans. Perfect pickpocketing victims. I didn’t remember most of the people I stole from. I took more food than money.

There was no food pantry in the city, and no homeless shelter. I started small; a cookie here, a box of matches there. Then I moved up to bigger things: bags of oranges, boxes of cereal; once even an entire roasted chicken. I just ran away fast enough; they couldn’t catch me. Then I got cocky. I robbed the wrong place.

Honk! I leaped backward as a taxi cab careened toward me. I fought the urge to teleport out of the way. I knew if I did that, my secret would be revealed. In a flash of yellow, the cab passed within a few feet of me, still honking. I sighed and readjusted my backpack. Then I saw the man in the cab.

His face was ashen—well, what I could see of it. A white cloth covered his mouth and his eyes were stretched wide and panicked.

I glanced around and sprinted after the cab. It turned down an alley. I followed. The road was dark, and no one was around, so I plunged my hand into my backpack and teleported the jacket over my shirt. The hat landed on my head and I yanked it down over my eyes. When cab turned again, I vanished.

 ~~~~~

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	4. Chapter 4

I landed with a thump on the roof of the vehicle. The yellow cab swerved into traffic. I hung on for dear life. Horns blared and tires squealed as we raced down the street. The wind threatened to lift me off the car, but I clenched my fingers tight in the grooves above the side windows. We shot through traffic; steel buildings and pedestrians became muddled blurs.

We turned into another dark side street. The cab slowed. We passed so close to the blood-red bricks, my hands tingled. The air smelled musty and stale. The cab stopped in front of a dark green door in the wall of bricks. The driver exited the cab. I slipped down the opposite side of the cab and crouched, watching from behind the vehicle.

A rusty metal slot creaked open in the top of the door, about at eye level. The driver, a tall, gray-haired man, opened the car door and yanked the kidnap victim to his feet. The victim looked pretty young: I’d say in his early twenties. He wore a beige jacket that matched his eyes and a green beanie covering his brown hair. I thought about teleporting him away, but I wanted to see who the kidnappers were.

A pair of bright blue eyes shone through the slot in the door. The driver pushed the man close to the eyes. He winced and looked away, but the driver squeezed his chin and forced him to face the slot. The eyes narrowed and disappeared. A few seconds later, the door opened with a click and the driver shoved the man through. I waited a moment, and followed.

I landed behind a coat rack in the corner by the door. The air was thick and heavy with cigar smoke. I peered through the haze as the driver pushed the man into a chair and untied the cloth around his mouth. The only light in the room came from a lamp over his head. Three big men in business suits stood over him. The icy blue eyed one stepped closer, and jabbed him in the chest with a fat finger. The man shrank lower in the chair. I could see his hands trembling, bound behind his back.

“You the one they call Douglas Ross?” The young man nodded. The eyes turned to the other suits. They all smirked.

“You used to work in a lab, didn’t you? Some kinda science operation.” The man sunk even lower in his seat, but he nodded.

“You ever work with gloves, Mr. Ross?” I couldn’t see his reaction, but it took him a while to answer. The suited man continued. “A pair of gloves with crystals in ‘em? Purple crystals?”

Douglas raised his head and nodded. Yes. My gloves. It was my turn to shrink behind furniture.

Two years ago, I had found a science laboratory complex on the outskirts of town. I figured I had enough skill stealing food, why not try something else? The complex was huge. Metal staircases lined up side by side past the chain link fence and balconies ran between them. I found a place that lacked security cameras and scaled the fence. Upstairs looked promising from beyond the fence, so I made my way up there. I found myself standing in a bright yellow hallway full of doors. Most were locked, and I didn’t have time to open them. I was sure I could find something valuable there: I could feel it. Halfway down the hallway, one of the doors stood open, and I crept into the dark room.

A pair of brown gloves lay on a table in the middle of the windowless room. Darn, nothing expensive. I turned to go. A wide shadow loomed over me. A woman stood there, a clipboard in one hand and a glass beaker in the other. Her eyes blazed. Her teeth ground together as she spoke in a whisper.

“What are you doing here?”

I could only squeak.

“Why are you here?” She shook the beaker. I backed up, trembling, wishing I was anywhere but there. She sprang forward and I ran back, right into the table holding the gloves. I closed my eyes, waiting for her to call security, but it never happened. I opened my eyes. I was sitting on my grandma’s powder blue living room carpet, my arm shielding my face, and a pair of brown gloves at my feet. The crystals in them glowed purple. I wanted to go home. I put the gloves on. If they could take me here, they could take me to my house. I willed them to take me there, even spoke to them, but it wasn’t until I moved to stand up that they worked. Over the next few months I assembled my outfit from pieces found in dumpsters and donation boxes. My name used to be Ivette. At the age of fifteen, I became Skip.

“Teleporting gloves, weren’t they?” The man looming over Douglas Ross didn’t wait for an answer. “There’s a little girl in this city who’s been a—” he searched for the right word, “irritation lately. We know she’s been using those gloves. Our question to you is,” he put his hands on either side of the chair and leaned far forward, “how do we beat them?” He pulled the fakest sympathetic face I had ever seen. “Will you tell us?” Douglas nodded again. Of course he would. He was scared stiff. I moved out from behind the coat rack as he spoke.

“Well, the gloves work through kinetic energy. You have to move to use them. You also have to be touching anything you want to teleport, but you can transport yourself and anything you are touching anywhere within the teleportation radius.”

I crept underneath broken tables and between chairs towards the men. I didn’t want to teleport across because I couldn’t see what was on the other side of the room. I could have accidentally landed in a pile of chairs and made a lot of noise. I made it halfway around before one of the men twisted in my direction. I froze. His eyes flickered over the room, and he turned back to Douglas. I continued.

“When I was working on it, it held up for thirty miles before it needed recharging.” Good, I had an exact number to work with. “They can be discharged by submerging them in ethanol. The crystals are made of a high-impact, shatter-resistant glass filled with energy-absorbing luminescent particles…” That was new. I glanced at the men and grinned. The dull looks on their faces told me they had no idea what Douglas had said. I decided I had heard enough, too. I crawled behind the men and prepared to pounce.

“And the gloves can be teleported off of her if they are touched.” Crap. I searched frantically for something sturdy I could hit them with besides my hands. A beer bottle? One sat on a table next to me. A hand came up and snatched the bottle away as I reached for it. I looked up. The driver stood leering at me. He grabbed my hand. Instinctively, I yanked backward, but I was too late. The gloves disappeared. He let go and held up his hands, which had my gloves on them. The crystals on them sparkled in the light. I backed up, right into the stomach of the icy-eyed man.

 

~~~~~

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	5. Chapter 5

“Well, look who it is; the little lady herself.” I moved into a fighting stance with my hand tightened into a fist and drawn back like a bow. “You’ve been giving us a lot of trouble, lately.” I wished I could think of something witty to say, but all I could think about was my gloves. Blood pounded in my ears and I stepped backward. The men approached, laughing like this was a game.

“What do we do with her?” said one. “Tie her up and throw her in the lake?”

“Naw, we oughta throw her off a tower. A real tall one.”

“No, boys,” said Icy-Eyes. “I got an even better idea.” He didn’t get the chance to say it. I ducked and grabbed a broken table leg, and cut upward with it, right in Icy-Eyes’ chin. He staggered backward, gasping. I swung sideways, catching one man in the gut, but the other was faster. He dodged it and came at me from the side. I held the table leg like a baseball bat and timed my hit, but just like that, someone behind me pulled it out of my hands. I dived out of the way of the charging man and spun around to see where it had gone. The driver had snatched my weapon from me. I scowled, and dodged again as Icy-Eyes came at me with a left hook. I deflected the punch and slipped my hand into his pocket. Ah-ha! I pulled out a knife he’d been carrying. I guess my years of stealing finally came in handy.

I ducked and let Icy-Eyes trip over me, his weight carrying him right into a table. The remaining man charged me again. This time I was ready. I launched myself blade-first at the big man’s stomach. His eyes grew wide and he leaned back, trying to stop, but it was too late. I fell with him, then pulled the blade from his gut with a sickening squelch.

I scrutinized the room, panting. For the moment, the two men did not pose a problem. One was curled up in a fetal position. The other looked unconscious, tangled up in broken chairs and tables. The driver just stood there. I didn’t know why he didn’t attack me, since he had my gloves. Arrogance, I guess. I ran to Douglas and cut off the ropes around his hands, and he rose and hugged me. I was so surprised, I almost didn’t hear him whisper, “Beer. Beer is ethanol.”

My eyes darted to a bottle on a nearby table. The driver hadn’t moved. He stood with his arms crossed and his head cocked to the side, waiting for me. Fine. He could stop waiting. I moved Douglas aside, lifted the beer bottle off the table, and faced the driver. The bottle felt light. I hoped there was enough in it for my plan to work.

 

~~~~~

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	6. Chapter 6

The driver moved first. He strode to me with confidence.

“You’re job ends here, Skip. I’ve seen you on the news.” The man looked vaguely familiar. “I know how famous you are. And I want some of that. It’s hard work being a cab driver. You get no respect.” The man spit on the ground. I wrinkled my nose. Yuck. Maybe I could distract him, keep him talking. I had to take him by surprise, or he’d just teleport away.

“No respect, huh? What do you mean?”

“The way people treat me,” he said, gesturing with his hands. My eyes were glued to the gloves. “No one bothers to be nice anymore. I used to work in the grocery business, but it was even worse there, so I turned to taxi driving, but now it’s just as bad. Everywhere, all the time. People being nasty.” His gestures grew more animated. “But I don’t get paid much, so that’s why I’m running jobs for the mob. But now,” he grinned wickedly. “Now I can teleport my customers. They’ll treat me better. They’ll pay me millions.” His eyes gleamed as he held out his hands as if to accept the money. Instead, he got a nice helping of warm beer. I leaped back as the crystals hissed and fizzled. The driver stared at the gloves, then at me. His image seemed to blink, and then it glowed purple for an instant before he collapsed. I checked his pulse. Nothing.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “It’s Skip, right?” Douglas crouched down beside me. “There’s nothing you can do. The gloves sapped the energy keeping him alive. He won’t come back.”

I slipped the gloves off of the still hands. They crackled once, and then went silent and dark.

“You can recharge them,” said Douglas. “They’ll work as good as new.”

Something scraped the floor to our left. Icy-Eyes was still unconscious, but the other man was up, trudging toward us, and murder gleamed in his eyes. Douglas shot to his feet and pulled at my shoulder.

“Just a minute,” I said. I pulled the driver’s wallet out of his pocket and opened it, and tears welled in my eyes. Douglas pulled my shoulder again. I handed him the beer bottle. He hesitated, and then took it from me. The man coming toward us was in bad shape: his suit had holes in it, the sleeves were ragged and torn, and he moved slowly. Douglas was much faster.

Clunk. Down he went. Douglas came back to me. “What’s wrong?” he said.

“This man,” I sniffed. “George Meyers. I stole a jar of peanut butter from his store and he caught me.” I looked up at Douglas. He had a funny look on his face. “But he didn’t have me arrested. He gave me more food. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

“Look. Skip, we have to get out of here. This place is seriously creeping me out.”

“Ok, but we’ll have to walk,” I said, holding up my gloved hands. He smiled as we turned to the door. “By the way, that lady who caught me stealing these- is she still mad at me?”

“Who, Susan? Oh, yeah, she was ticked. I was her assistant.”

“Maybe I’ll get the chance to apologize one day.”

“No need,” he said. “She made another pair.” I froze in my tracks, my tear-slicked hand poised over my eye.

“Another pair?”

“Yeah.” Douglas stopped and looked back at me.

“And how well is this pair guarded?”

“Really well. Like, you can’t even get in without an ID and clearance from the guard.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “But still in the city?”

“Yeah.” Douglas turned fully to face me.

“Have you seen the crime rate? As long as those gloves are in the city, they’re not safe, and neither are the people here.”

“No one can get in.”

“Believe me, they can.”

Douglas followed me through the tangle of grimy alleyways—around skyscrapers, dumpsters, and cardboard communities—until we reached the main highway. He had inched closer to me through the entire trip, and was practically clinging to my arm, his eyes darting from one sight to another. I shook him off and stood back.

“Listen. I have a job to do. I know for a fact that people like the ones who kidnapped you can break into wherever the gloves are being kept. If I have to, I’ll stop them alone. But it would be a lot easier with your help, seeing as you know the place, and the crystals. Your choice.” He looked over at the street, full of people chatting and cars racing by. Then over his shoulder at the maze we had just walked through. I knew he was thinking of his kidnappers, and I wondered if he just wanted to go home and forget the whole thing had ever happened. Then he looked at me.

“I guess you’ve got yourself a sidekick.”

~~~~~

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